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Bush likely to bow out of one debate

WASHINGTON - President Bush may skip one of the three debates that have been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates and accepted by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Republican officials said Tuesday.

The officials said Bush's negotiating team plans to resist the middle debate, which was to be Oct. 8 in a town meeting format in the crucial state of Missouri.

The Bush-Cheney campaign announced that its debate negotiation team will be led by James A. Baker III, who was secretary of state under President George Bush. Baker was the Bush campaign's chief representative in the Florida recount fight of 2000 and is the current president's personal envoy on Iraqi debt resolution.

The audience for the second debate, to be at Washington University in St. Louis, was to be picked by the Gallup Organization. The commission said participants should be "undecided voters" from the St. Louis metropolitan area. A presidential adviser said campaign officials were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans.

Bush plans to accept debates at the University of Miami in Coral Gables on Sept. 30 and at Arizona State University in Tempe on Oct. 13. The campaign has also agreed to a vice presidential debate Oct. 5 at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

WASHINGTON - Former President Jimmy Carter is accusing fellow Georgia Democrat Zell Miller of "unprecedented disloyalty" for the senator's speech at the Republican convention.

In a letter sent over the weekend, Carter also called Miller's speech "rabid and mean-spirited."

"By now, there are many of us loyal Democrats who feel uncomfortable in seeing that you have chosen the rich over the poor, unilateral pre-emptive war over a strong nation united with others for peace, lies and obfuscation over the truth and the political technique of character assassination as a way to win elections."

Miller responded Tuesday by repeating his contention, made in the convention speech last week, that the security of his family outweighed any loyalty to the party where he has spent a lifetime.

NADER OFF VA. BALLOT: Independent Ralph Nader will not appear on Virginia's presidential ballot, the state Board of Elections said Tuesday. Nader fell short of the required 10,000 certified signatures on his petitions, said Jean Jensen, secretary of the board. "He needed 10,000 and we were able to verify 7,342," Jensen said.